Inmates on the move at federal prison in Danbury

Denis J. O'Malley

Published 12:07 am, Monday, October 21, 2013

DANBURY -- Situated high atop sloping fields, set back from Pembroke Road by a curving, tree-lined drive, the property offers the added privacy of a stand of pines that all but mask the barbed-wire fencing behind them.

But the Federal Correctional Institute's most significant value is not in the prime real estate it sits upon, but in the hundreds of beds it holds inside its low-security walls.

After the activation of a similar facility in Aliceville, Ala., introduced more than 1,500 new low-security beds into the federal prison system earlier this year, the Bureau of Prisons settled on FCI Danbury as the site that would undergo a "mission change," transferring out the female population for males to alleviate crowding across the entire federal prison system.

But over the course of about three months since that announcement, a range of obstacles have limited the female Danbury inmates' exodus.

First, letters from members of Congress bought some time to reconsider the plan. Then the partial government shutdown put another hold on the transfers.

Now the action is conditional on the outcome of a meeting to be held in the coming weeks between U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and a delegation of Northeast congressmen.

Should the mission change resume, despite the intervention, it will mark the first time in nearly two decades that the neighbors on top of the hill on Route 37 will be men.

Through the years, many famous people have called FCI home, albeit reluctantly, while local people drive back and forth on the busy street outside.

In terms of the physical plant, there is not much that will change, if anything, to effect the switch.

"Really no major changes other than the gender of the inmate," said Ed Ross, a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons.

The only significant expense required to accommodate male inmates in Danbury amount to $260,000 in clothing and "general inmate care items," as BOP Director Charles E. Samuels Jr. said in a letter responding to an inquiry by U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

"The BOP does not have to remodel, construct or make significant changes to FCI Danbury to accommodate male inmates," the letter read.

Programs geared toward inmates' education, vocational training or re-entry into society will continue to be offered for the new population as well.

"All those kind of things -- the programming that goes on at any prison -- that won't be changed because the mission is changing," Ross said.

But converting the prison back to a male facility after almost 20 years as a female facility will naturally have a certain effect on the day-to-day operations inside FCI Danbury, according to a federal corrections officers union representative.

"There's a difference obviously in aggressiveness. Male inmates, even at the low-security facilities, can be more aggressive," said Philip Glover, northeast regional vice president of the council of prison locals.

Violence among inmates and gang activity are likely to increase, problems that the staff at FCI Danbury will have to deal with on a more frequent basis if the conversion to male inmates is completed.

"Those kinds of things happen at even low (risk) males," Glover said.

Another difference for the staff will be the manner in which certain operations, particularly inmate searches, are carried out.

"There's a difference in how you pat-search an inmate," Glover said.

"The requirements of how you can search a female inmate as opposed to a male inmate. Cross-gender issues are much more highlighted because of (the Prison Rape Elimination Act)."

But, as far as the corrections officers are concerned, changing to a male population could be a benefit at FCI Danbury, which Glover said "has historically had trouble getting enough female workers."

"Cross-gender searches will eventually be prohibited ... which makes it more difficult obviously to run a female population when you have a large number of male staff," he said.

Glover said he could not gauge the staff's collective feeling on the conversion because the start-and-stop nature of the process thus far has made it difficult for them to come to a consensus.

"Obviously, there's a mix. The female staff I'm sure would rather keep things the way they are. The male staff, it'll probably be easier for them to work there," he said. "There really hasn't been a chance to sit down as a union and say `OK, what are our issues here,' because they started it then they stopped it."

Of course, for the voices speaking out against the conversion, its potential effect on the staff is of much less concern than its effect on the inmates and their families.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who previously served as a U.S. attorney, said the separation of a female inmate from her family could strain her rehabilitation and eventual re-entry into society, "particularly for mothers."

"Separating them from their children really imperils and endangers a bond that is vital to their coming back to a normal life and avoiding repeating criminal activity," he said.

As of July, 59 percent of the women housed in FCI Danbury had children under the age of 21, said Samuels, the BOP director, in his letter to Murphy.

And an increased distance from their mother could increase the likelihood that those children will one day find themselves incarcerated, Blumenthal said.

"Separating mothers from children creates more crime and more criminals with much larger, longer-term costs," he said.

In his letter to Murphy, Samuels conceded that the transfer of female inmates from Danbury would cause some women to be further from their "release residences."

But, ultimately, Samuels said the transfers will result "in the transfer of a much greater number of women closer to their release residences."

That is also true of the men who would be transferred into FCI Danbury. A total of 7,421 male inmates in the low-security facilities across the country would be closer to their release residencies if transferred to Danbury, though there would only be room for several hundred of them, Samuels said.

A number of the female inmates now at Danbury could also remain at the minimum security camp on the site, which will remain female, if they qualified for the appropriate reduction in their security level, Samuels said.

Across the system, the shifting of inmates between facilities if Danbury becomes a male prison would reduce crowding in low-security female prisons by more than half and low-security male prisons by 2 percent.

One thing Samuels stressed and Blumenthal later reiterated was the need to review individual inmates on a case-by-case basis to determine what effect any transfer would have on their relationships with their families.

"The numbers are almost irrelevant," Blumenthal said. "These decisions should be made woman-by-woman, case-by-case ... I'm not in favor of keeping women in Danbury, per se. It's the women who can be kept in the Northeast who should be kept in Danbury."